


Love can touch us one time (and last for a lifetime)

by hllfire



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Character Death, Drowning, Happy Ending, M/M, RMS Titanic, X-Men: First Class (2011), but they come back!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28625118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hllfire/pseuds/hllfire
Summary: Ever since Charles could remember, he was afraid of deep water. It was a fear he didn't know how it started, why it stayed, but that was real and had accompanied Charles through his whole life.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 20
Kudos: 57





	Love can touch us one time (and last for a lifetime)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [tell me how it came that night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/299103) by [minarchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minarchy/pseuds/minarchy). 



> **WARNING: IT'S A TITANIC FIC SO OF COURSE PEOPLE DIE,** I didn't check the "Major Character Death" warning because they come back so ?, but be warned that they do die, it's reincarnation au after all.
> 
> Ok so almost exactly 24 hours ago from when I'm posting this I by chance found the most heartbreaking Cherik smut I've ever read in my life. The result? I ended up writing more angst for it (but happy ending this time!) because it was too good of an idea not to do it. I'd recommend you read the fic this is inspired from first because it broke my heart into pieces.
> 
> I want to thank Su for enabling me into writing this and say sorry for the psychic damage. Hope you guys like it. 💔
> 
> (Also yes, the title is a lyric from My Heart Will Go On, it was necessary.)

Ever since Charles could remember, he was afraid of deep water. No one could ever explain why he would scream in terror whenever he was at the beach or at a large pool when he was a small child, why he refused to get into the water by himself, or why, even if he wasn't in the water itself, Charles was terrified of getting on a boat. His father had tried once when he was still alive, carrying Charles into the family's boat with soft promises that everything was okay, but Charles had squirmed and screamed, had made his throat hurt with how much he yelled that he didn't want to, that he wanted to get out. When Charles started getting pale, his whole body turning cold from the fear, his father had carried him out and never tried again.

It was a fear he didn't know how it started, why it stayed, but that was real and had accompanied Charles through his whole life.

As he looked at the ship next to the shore that Moira was guiding them to, Charles grabbed Raven's hand tightly, feeling his hands and face grow cold. 

"It'll be fine." Raven said when she felt the grip on her hand, knowing exactly what was happening as Charles' eyes wouldn't leave the damned source of his fears. "We're with the coast guard, they'll keep us safe. It's alright."

Charles tried to believe her as they followed Moira into the boat, thanking Raven silently for not letting go of his hand even if he could feel the discomfort coming from her at the tight grip. As he stood on the deck of the boat, Charles felt light headed.

* * *

There were people running to the upper deck, some more desperate than others, as Charles and some colleagues went down with him to the lower parts of the ship while there was still time. He could feel under his feet how the ship was slowly tilting, the bow slowly sinking into the water thanks to the impact with the iceberg, but he didn't have time to fear that just yet. He had to get to Erik.

When he finally reached the door separating him from Erik, his heart skipped a beat after seeing it closed.

He tried to open it, frowning a little bit as he noticed it wouldn't give, that it seemed stuck, and tried again, and again, and again-

"Erik!" he screamed as the other Abled Seamen that were there with him tried opening the door as well. His hand banged on the thick metal door, making a muffled sound. Only then he noticed the water slowly wetting the ground under his feet.  _ "Erik!" _

"We should get out." one of the men said, turning to Charles with a panicked look, letting go of the metal door. "They were instructed to keep their work going,  _ we _ should be getting out of here."

"If you want to leave, then  _ leave." _ Charles growled, eyes turning to the man and seeing him swallow. "I need to- Lehnsherr, I need to talk to Lehnsherr."

"Charles?"

He didn't have time to pay attention to the few men that did leave, that ran back the stairs, headed to the Grand Staircase on Deck E, his eyes staring at the white metal door as his hands tried once again to open it after hearing Erik's muffled voice calling his name on the other side. 

"Erik? Erik! The door won't open. What-"

"It's stuck." Charles' voice died for a second at Erik's words and the way they sounded somber. "I'm with some of the other engineers here. There's- there's a leak in the hull. We're trying to keep everything working for as long as we can."

Charles felt ill for a moment, his fingers on the locked door as he tried to breathe, the air not sticking to his lungs as it should. He faintly noticed the water wetting his shoes now, making his shoes and socks wet. He hated the feeling of wet socks against his feet, it made him uncomfortable, but for a moment, it didn't matter.

"Open the door." Charles said in a daze, banging on the metal again, his voice commanding.

"I can't." 

"Open the  _ bloody _ door!"

"Charles, it's stuck." Erik's voice was quiet behind the metal door, and Charles could almost picture how his face looked at that moment: somber but with feigned calm in his expression. "Get out of here. I have work to do and so do you. You have to help with the lifeboats."

Charles swallowed thickly, trying one last time to make the door give, to open the door and see Erik at least once more —  _ one last time, _ his mind told him as the salt water made his feet wet, as he felt the leaning of the ship get worse. 

"There's not enough lifeboats. The few men up there are more than enough to care for the lifeboats that  _ are _ there." Charles' head felt lighter as he said that, as he said the morbid truth that many people didn't know as they went to the lifeboats. "I'm not leaving until this door opens."

He could hear the sigh from the other side of the door, mixed with screams from Erik's mates as they worked relentlessly. There was the faint noise of water rushing in from somewhere in there.

Erik didn't try to make Charles leave again.

* * *

Sebastian Shaw's boat was somewhere near, but Charles wasn't really paying attention to it as he tried to control himself, to tell himself he was alright. He tried to focus on Shaw's mind, on the task at hand, but his telepathy felt almost too hard to control now. Each slight movement of the boat under his feet felt like it would sink, like its bow would slowly go down and sink into the bottom of the sea and take Charles with it. It was irrational, and yet there was that fear in Charles' gut telling him to run from there as quickly as he could even if his legs seemed stiff, even if there wasn't anywhere to run.

He felt some of it dissipating for a very small moment as surprise overcame his fear when he felt something make him lose Shaw's mind. Another telepath, another one like him. That was too important to ignore. He quickly told Moira about it, saying he wouldn't be of much help there, although his voice still sounded distant in his own ears.

Only after Shaw's mind was gone, Charles was able to feel someone else's mind there, in the water, flooding his own with loud thoughts and making his head hurt for a moment. The new mind was filled with rage and, strangely, a fear much like Charles' as he kept himself afloat in the water, as he pushed back the fear so he wouldn't sink and so he could focus only on the anger. He had a job to get done, and he'd do it even if his mind was screaming in fear as he swam in the dark water.

"There's someone else out there."

* * *

"The water reached the boiler." Erik's voice called out after a while of silence, making Charles' hand reach for the cold metal that kept him apart from Erik. "We won't be able to keep it going for much longer."

Charles was alone in there now, resting against the metal door as he felt the cold water wetting the ankles of his pants and rising to his shins steadily fast. He didn't like the feeling of wet clothes against his skin, he never did, especially salt water; his wet socks and wet pants felt disgusting against his skin.

The ship felt more and more inclined as the minutes passed.

"There must be another way out." Charles said, trying once again to open the door,  _ hoping _ it would give. Maybe if he tried again, again,  _ again… _ "How much- Where's the water? At which height?"

There was a pause before Erik's voice was heard again.

"On my knees now. It's rising fast... No one could fix the leaking, not that it would be of much help in this situation." Charles closed his eyes, head resting against the cold door. His nails scraped against the white paint on the metal and the feeling was uncomfortable, like the wet fabric of his pants and socks. "You can still try, Charles.  _ Get out." _

"You've heard me before, there's not enough lifeboats." Charles said, fingernails still scraping the metal as if it could help him to reach Erik. On the other side of the door, Erik's mates were silent; there was only the noise of the water rushing in and the morbid creeks of the ship now. "Women and children will be the priority, first class especially. Besides, you still owe me a report, Erik Lehnsherr. Smith will have my head if I don't- if I don't give it to him..."

He heard the huffed out chuckle coming from the other side of the door, accompanied by a choked out sound that resembled crying too much. Charles' eyes remained closed through it, the cold water almost hitting his knees now, as he slowly felt his body pressing more and more against the door, gravity pulling him down with the ship. As the salt sea water made his legs feel cold, he felt a few tears escaping his closed eyes, wetting his cheeks. 

"I think I'll be late on that report." Erik finally said, voice strained, and Charles felt his chest hurt.

If he could only see Erik again...

* * *

Charles looked down into the dark water under him, seeing a man there, before his eyes were drawn to the two anchors that flew around and destroyed Shaw's boat. The display of the man's mutation was  _ marvelous _ to say the least, and it was once again a welcome distraction as he stood on top of that boat.

He felt the smile that had formed on his lips dissipating, however, when he saw the submarine and when the man tried to stop it, only successfully being pulled by the giant body of metal that he couldn't control. The man would drown.

"Let go!" Charles screamed, desperate, feeling his breathing picking up with dread. "You have to let it go!"

As Charles tried his best to tell Moira that there was someone in the water and that they  _ had _ to help him, the fear lit up in the man's mind again as he fought to stay afloat, as the water hit his face and stopped him from breathing properly, and as he sunk, still latched to the submarine, fear and anger battling inside of him.  _ He would drown. _

Charles felt for the man's mind, feeling as he kept being dragged, going under the boat Charles was on as the submarine didn't give in to him to his power; Charles felt his heart sink. The man would drown, he would die if Charles didn't do something.

He tried going into the man's mind —  _ Erik's _ mind — losing his breath at all the pain and anger that hit him, learning just  _ why _ he was doing that, why he was ignoring the fear of the water to go after Shaw. There was so much pain, but there was also  _ so much more... _

Charles would normally be still from fear at that moment, feeling the boat move under his feet, but for the first time something was stronger than that fear. He turned around, running from one side of the boat to another as Raven screamed his name. He shed his coat, letting it fall on the boat's deck, right before he jumped off into the dark waters below.

Whatever irrational fear he had of the water, it seemed to be weaker than the desperate need to save that man.  _ Erik. _

When his body hit the cold water, Charles almost stilled again, his brain screaming for him that this was his death sentence, but he pushed through it although it felt painful. When he touched Erik's body, when he held him, some of the fear disappeared, as if that touch was calming enough to make him forget he was possibly about to drown.

_ «You can't. You'll drown. You have to let go. I know what this means to you but you're going to die. Please, Erik,  _ calm your mind.»

* * *

Charles hated the feeling of wet clothes, he always felt like they constricted him as they clung to his skin, and for him it was one of the few bad things in life, right after the smell of cigarettes. As the freezing water of the Atlantic Ocean covered him, as his socks, trousers, shirt and hair were wet and his lips trembled with the cold, Charles learned that it truly was a bother, even if his mind told him it wouldn't be soon. He would add something worse to his list. 

The white door was almost completely gone with the water now, the ship was so tilted that Charles wondered how long it would take for her to turn completely on her side and sink like that to the bottom of the ocean. He held himself to the wall there, his hand now reaching the ceiling — he was so short, and yet there he was, touching the ceiling with his pale hand, floating in clear and freezing water; he'd joke with Erik about it if he had anything left in him for a joke. He could hear Erik on the other side fighting to stay close to that wall, to Charles.

For what he had said, there wasn't much place for air left inside of the boiler room anymore, the few people who were with him gathered all together and just held back the inevitable. What Charles would do to be there as well, to be close to Erik…

"Charles?" he called out, voice slightly panicked. Charles had been silent for a while now.

"I'm here." he answered, feeling a shiver run through his whole body with the merciless cold. "I'm here, it's okay. You're not alone..."

"What did you have planned?" Erik's voice asked all of the sudden, strained, trying not to tremble with the cold and the fear. "For New York, I mean." 

Charles felt pain at the mention of what could've been, wishing he could've been under the warm sun with Erik on the New York port like he should've been after the  _ RMS Titanic _ had finished her maiden trip. Instead, there was only cold and the ship's lights, which he knew for certain would lose their power at any moment, and Erik was on the other side of a metal wall, away from him.

"Resting." Charles finally said, unable to stop the trembling of his lips as the cold made him want to curl up and seek warmth. "Being with you for more than one night. Taking you to a restaurant, to a room just for us. My- My plans were you."

There were other men on the other side of that wall with Erik, hearing his words, taking them in, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. All of Charles' and Erik's secrets and sins would die with them anyway, maybe these men could find it in themselves not to care as well.

Erik seemed to feel the same, for it took only a few seconds for him to respond.

"I'd be able to wake up with you." his voice was shaking; for cold or emotion, Charles couldn't tell. He wished he could. "Just once, wake up and see you. And I would be able to see you angry with the morning sun. To think how beautiful you look under it. To say how much I love you." 

Charles felt the tears again, hitting the wall a few times as if he wanted to break through it and almost sinking in the cold water as he moved like that. It wasn't fair, it didn't feel fair.

"I love you too." he replied, voice breaking. "I do."

"Charles-" but, whatever he was about to say, it stopped there, a grunt being heard before came the dreadful silence.

Charles' eyes widened, his hand hitting the wall again as he called Erik's name. He heard a few knocks on the metal, muffled by the thickness of it and the water. The knocks kept going, and suddenly Charles found himself pressing his face to the ceiling, sucking a few panicked breaths before taking one last long one. The water reached the ceiling, there was nowhere else he could go to breathe, he heard the knocks; he knocked back. The salt water hurt his eyes as he stared at the wall.

The knocking stopped at some point and there was silence underwater. His lungs started to hurt. In a panicked moment, he tried to look for a way out, but there was none — everything was underwater. He managed to get himself back to the door, to Erik, knocking a few times without a response, before the lights suddenly went out and he was swallowed by darkness. His lungs ached for air, spasming as he refused to breathe in. Maybe Erik was still there, maybe he was still holding his breath, he had to try too. Maybe he'd be able to touch Erik again, to hold him, when that door opened.

There was a loud and terrifying noise amidst the darkness, something cracking and creaking and the pressure around him suddenly felt worse and worse by the second. With one last spasm of his chest, Charles sucked in a breath, unable to stop himself anymore.

It hurt, it burned, and then it turned into a blissful darkness. Erik's face, Erik's smile that was saved for him only, was the last thing that crossed his mind before his mind was gone.

* * *

It took a while for someone to take Charles and Erik from the water, a smaller boat taking them to shore as Charles finally experienced the consequences of his fear. As he sat safely on the shore, his whole body shook, his breathing laboured as he felt his clothes glued to his skin. He despised the feeling of wet clothes, he always felt like they constricted him as they clung to his skin, and for him it was one of the few bad things in life, right after the smell of cigarettes. 

By his side, Erik didn't seem much better.

They were given warm blankets to dry themselves and get warm, the cold wind of the shore making him feel like he was surrounded by ice, like he was still underwater. Erik was shaking as well, curling himself as much as he could in search for warmth as he looked warily at the men around him, until his eyes landed on Charles.

They looked at each other, both thinking about what had just happened, but both wondering about different things: Charles wondered how Erik had ignored his fear of the water to go after Shaw and how he had the same fear as him; Erik wondered why Charles had saved him if he was clearly just as terrified as him. Both of them wondered why that touch underwater had calmed them both.

As the coast guards talked between themselves, Erik moved first, getting close to Charles hesitantly and without raising his eyes to him. Charles moved as well, feeling something inside his soul agitating at the proximity. Their shoulders touched, their hands brushed together; Charles felt as if a wall had been broken as Erik's fingers moved to lay on top of his own, as he held his hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> When they travel through the country to look for recruits for their cause, they stop at New York City and Charles feels a sense of a task that had been left undone finally being completed when they're having lunch on a cheap restaurant in the city; he knows Erik feels the same, although both are clueless as to why. They share a bed in the hotel they're staying in, and Erik wakes up to Charles painted by the morning sunlight. That's where they share their first kiss; it feels like it's not the first.  
> When they go to the Westchester mansion, Erik finds old photo albums in a room that was locked away and brings them back to Charles to see. There's a man in one of the pictures, standing in front of the _RMS Titanic_ that looks too much like Charles, and Charles confirms it's one of his relatives from his father's side of the family after looking closely at the album. He had died when the ship sank to the bottom of the ocean. Erik tells Charles that a relative of his had worked at the same ship, and had died all the same; he had been named after him when he was born 19 years later. Neither of them likes seeing the picture of the sunken ship.  
> They dream with a white metal door that night, with water rising, ready to drown them, and both of them seem like they know the feeling all too well, but the dream shifts when Charles calms Erik down with his mind — able to reach him like that —, when Erik breaks the metal door and reaches for Charles, taking him away from the sinking ship and to safety as he floats above the water. The irrational fear both of them had ever since their birth goes away that night, when they realize nothing can keep them separated anymore.
> 
> -
> 
> Comments and Kuddos are more than appreciated and keeps an author's soul alive. Even a "❤️" or "+kuddos" are valid and will make me happy. ❤️
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://hellfre.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/hllfire)!


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